boycott the liberal/conservative dichotomy

considering myself a liberal is just as ridiculous as considering myself a conservative.

i used to identify myself with 'liberals'. mostly because i agreed with a few issues that so called liberals were championing. i don't like guns, i think the rich should help the poor, and i never liked christianity being shoved down mine or anyone else's throat. i never liked abortion, but i don't feel comfortable dictating to women what they must do with the fetuses gestating inside of them.

i came to realize that my ideas were also related to libertarian ideas. the problem i had is that libertarians are supposed to be right-wing. i never have wanted to associate myself with money-grubbing, gun-toting jerks. but at the same time, i identify with some of the same base ideals that they uphold. specifically: don't tell me what to do, and i won't tell you what to do.

when i thought of myself as a liberal, i considered myself opposed to the conservatives. it was natural to support and vote for the politicians that pushed for the issues that resonated with me. but it became obvious that these politicans only supported my ideas when it suited their aspirations. the elect in washington will argue back and forth before they 'achieve' a 'compromise' (which is always muddled to the point of incomprehension) that always seems to benefit some influential corporation.

the same pattern seems to apply regardless of which party is in 'control' of the government. regardless of whether the 'right-wing' or 'left-wing' gets it's way, the same bs seems to happen. why is it news (and more importantly, what is the point) when congress passes a resolution that denounces terrorism? do they actually spend time debating whether or not they should denounce something that is obviously terrible. i guess i shouldn't complain about that. after all, useless resolutions are less harmful than 'bipartisan' crap like the patriot act and no child left behind. what i've realized is that everything that 'our' government does is either retarded or dangerous (or somewhere inbetween).

the tragic part is that we the people still identify and support these jerks. the 2004 election is still recent enough for me to remember the hatred i felt toward bush supporters. sidenote: i never liked kerry. i thought that dean and kucinich were the only ones who wanted to change the status quo. but, of course, i was sad for a few days after kerry lost. i came to my senses though, and i've gotten over the animosity i felt towards conservatives.

i fell into the trap of believing that things could have changed if kerry had been elected. bush is obviously bad, but would kerry have changed things? i think the answer is no. the iraq war, the real litmus test for u.s. foreign and domestic policy, would have continued much the same as it has if kerry had been elected. i was hopeful, but, in retrospect, i was wrong.

it seems to me that, since both the democratic and republican parties seem to 'achieve' similiar goals, the only real purpose of having the two (supposedly diametrically opposed) parties is to divide the people of the United States. oh crap, i just realized that i need a disclaimer and it really irritates me. oh well. i am absolutely not advocating a one-party farce of a democratic nation-state. back to the point. the leaders of the two parties will argue back and forth on a particular issue, then they will come up with a useless compromise which does nothing. for example: the republicans will go on about the need for restrictions on abortion and the democrats will fight this legislation. eventually, a bill, which solves nothing, will be agreed upon and hailed as a milestone in 'our' democracy. anyways, the point is that the two parties (or wings of the political spectrum) speak differently about their agendas while pursuing the same goals. the net effect of this process is that agendas that are detrimental to the average man are implemented just as the average man blames another average man (who is in a similar situation but holds a different 'political' opinion than the other) for the ills that invade the issues that resonate with him. this repeats vice versa, sideways, and any which way that will people to blame other people for the problems that plague them.

the end result for me is the rejection of all liberal or conservative labels that people chose to ascribe to themselves or others. the fact is that WE ARE ALL JUST TRYING TO GET BY. everything that anyone does is a function of that statement rather than being related to some liberal/conservative/republican/democrat label that someone assigns to him/herself. no one is actually any of these things. we're all just people, going through similiar crap, and trying to get by.

i've decided to not waste anymore energy disliking others (no matter how justified i may be). after all, the only thing we gain from the liberal/conservative dichotomy is a deeply entrenched division between men who should be embracing each other as brothers.














[edit on 25-6-2005 by polytron]